Sunday, 28 February 2010

New cover art for Peter F. Hamilton's COMMONWEALTH SAGA

Continuing the theme from the last post, Pan Macmillan have also decided to rejacket The Commonwealth Saga, Peter F. Hamilton's duology which preceded his current Void Trilogy. Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained, with their new covers by Steve Stone, will be reissued later this year. Entertainingly, the two covers form one big picture when lined up next to one another (shades of HarperCollins Voyager's mid-1990s covers for Asimov's Foundation books, which form one big picture when the first six books are lined up next to one another).

Whilst the artwork is good, I can't hep but feel the artwork is misleading. Whilst there is military action in the duology, it is a fairly small part of the story. In addition, the artwork looks more near-future military SF than galaxy-spanning space opera in the late 24th Century, and might have been a better fit for Hamilton's near-future Greg Mandel trilogy.

With this and the new covers for the Long Price Quartet, I hope it doesn't become a trend to put this kind of military action focused covers on books where it doesn't suit just to pull in a few extra readers. But since follow-the-leader is pretty much the name of the book-cover game, I suspect that it will, unless the approach with the Mistborn covers catches the wider attention.

Not liking the new artwork, that ship looks very Star Wars: Attack Of The Clones or Avatar inspired. And as for the soldier? If that is supposed to be a representation of the infiltrators sent onto Prime occupied worlds its not how I envisaged them, looks way to lightweight.